“Reversibility” read by Catherine Parnell

From the new edition of The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Aaron Poochigian.

Glad angel, do you not know disquietude
sighs, degradation, penitence, vexations,
and frightening nights’ obscure abominations
which crumple up the heart into a wad?
Glad angel, do you not know disquietude?

Angel of kindness, do you not know distemper,
fists clenching in the dark and tears of gall,
when Vengeance beats out rhythms born in Hell
and makes, of all our faculties, his empire?
Angel of kindness, do you know distemper?

Healthy angel, do you know disease
which, like an outcast, limps through hospital rooms?
Hoping to see sunlight, a few stray beams,
he does his best to speak but just makes noise.
Healthy angel, do you know disease?

Angel of beauty, do you know the fear 
of wrinkling, aging, and the hideous
torment of seeing, in another person’s eyes,
a former passion turning to a chore?
Angel of beauty, do you know fear?

Angel of light and mirth and happiness,
the dying David would have claimed the bloom
that radiates from your tantalizing prime,
but all I want to ask of you is grace,
angel of light and mirth and happiness. 

From The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Aaron Poochigian. Translation copyright © 2022 by Aaron Poochigian. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Catherine Parnell, co-founder of Birch Bark Editing and MicroLit Almanac, is a writer, editor, and educator. Her publications include the memoir The Kingdom of His Will, as well as stories, interviews and essays in Orca, West Trade Review, Tenderly, Cleaver, Free State Review, The Brooklyn Rail, The Rumpus, The Southampton Review, The Baltimore Review, and others. Her website: catherineparnell.com. Follow her on Twitter at @catparnell.